Shore Leave
by OceanTiger13
Summary: Sequel to Legato. Jim and Bones go on Shore Leave, camping. Slash. I'm not separating it into chapters so it's just one elephantine fic. Happy Holidays.


Rated T for tea, which Spock likes to drink. (Mainly swearing, nothing heavy.)

I own nyet, but the idea.

Slash, don't like, don't read. Just Jim and Bones fluff. Pseudo-sequel to Legato, although in past tense as opposed to present. Idk. Have fun.

**Shore Leave**

Bones yawned tiredly as he stuffed a pair of socks into the blue duffel bag lying open on his bed. It was nine that morning, and he had managed to get about three hours of sleep after his conversation with Jim.

At the moment he was packing, bits of thought drifting through his head like bits of fluff on a breeze through the middle of nowhere.

Fuzzily, he reflected that the rest of the day would probably consist of listening to Jim continuously warning him about his mother, and him continuously dozing off.

He threw in a few other things—his ID, his terran passport, his interplanetary passport (in case Jim wanted to go off-planet, although he doubted this highly), his picture of Joanna and a few other necessities, before zipping it shut and flopping back down on his bed next to it to stare blankly at the ceiling, wishing he hadn't decided to down that cup of coffee earlier to keep him awake while he showered, dressed, and packed.

Vaguely, he wondered where everyone else was going on shore leave. Spock and Uhura, he ahd heard, were going to spend some time on Earth, then see what was going on with the colony on New Vulcan. Sickbay gossip had told him Chekov and Sulu, after visiting their families, had plans to go to South America together. He had no idea where Scotty would be going other than Scotland, and even that was sketchy.

And then there was Jim. What did he have planned? Judging by the remarks about his mother, Iowa was on the list, no doubts there. It surprised Bones that after three years he still knew so little about his friend. What kind of vacation did he prefer? Adrenaline-fueled roller-coaster amusement parks? Or tanning on the beach on some tropical island?

Bones didn't particularly care where they were headed, so long as it didn't involve medical paperwork. Knowing Jim, however, this might be likely. You could take Jim out of a daredevil situation but you couldn't take the daredevil out of Jim.

Believe it, he and Spock had tried, and failed miserably.

Bones yawned, briefly shutting his eyes, then reopening them, as he was forced to do so by his caffeine buzz. He blinked a couple of times, then proceeded to descend into a zombie-like state of nonthought, zoning out entirely for the next half hour or so.

It was nine forty-five when the door to the doctor's quarters slid open, and an enthusiastic Jim bounded in.

"Hey, Bones" he half-shouted, "are you awake?"

Bones, who had been drifting into a sort of half-doze was snapped awake. Irritably, he sat up. "Well, I am _now_, Jim!" he growled.

The captain grinned. "C'mon. Get up. We're docking in fifteen minutes, then I'm outta here."

"By the way," Bones grumbled, "Where are you going."

"We are going camping."

…_Camping?!_ Bones thought incredulously to himself. For some odd reason or another, Jim just didn't seem like the camping type.

"Where?"

"Here and there. You ever been to the West Coast? Not counting the Academy, of course."

"Briefly, yes. Traveled around California on vacation."

"Well, California-Oregon-Washington area. Maybe even Canada."

"Sounds fun," Bones mumbled, tiredly.

Jim raised one eyebrow in a manner so reminiscent of Spock that Bones almost burst out laughing then and there.

"Your lack of enthusiasm is very reassuring," he told the doctor, sarcastically.

"What? I like camping. I mean, I'm not an outdoors nut, but I don't mind it. It's not like I was really going to do anything anyways."

"Well, now you are. Come on, I wanna tell everyone good-bye first."

Jim took Bones by the wrist and started dragging him out the door, the latter of the two yawning loudly.

The formalities of docking, checking in, and leaving the ship seemed ridiculously dragged out and lengthened, as if the Admirals in charge did not want to allow the crew of the Enterprise its freedom just yet.

Bones, in spite of his tiredness, felt himself drumming his fingers on tabletops in irritation to the beat of the Cancan, faster and faster as he grew more impatient.

Jim, while attempting to maintain a civil and pleasant conversation with the aging Admiral Brown, had taken to pacing back and forth as behind Brown, an unnaturally-thin, middle-aged, female captain with short, straight silver hair glared disapprovingly at Jim, probably annoyed about his lack of a uniform, though Brown seemed not to notice.

Jim and Bones' sentiments of impatience were shared by the rest of the people on the bridge; Uhura, for one, who in the background, off the edge of Brown and his irritable colleague's viewscreen, was making funny faces at them and imitating the way Brown's bushy white eyebrows moved up and down animatedly as he talked in a rambling, wheezy voice. Chekov and Sulu, having caught sight of her, were barely concealing grins of hilarity.

The only one who seemed able to keep a straight face throughout of all of this was, predictably, Spock, the only one on the bridge still in his uniform, keeping silent but watching Admiral Brown intently, as if hanging onto his every word.

_Probably only to avoid looking at Uhura,_ Bones thought, rolling his eyes, also out of sight.

When finally the ship had made it into port and Jim had checked her in, they managed to escape and it was not long before the officers of the Enterprise were stepping off the shuttle at Starfleet Academy in San Francisco.

Bones yawned, heaving his duffel over his shoulder and waving goodbye to a grinning Scotty who, curiously, was heading straight back toward Hanger One, dragging an enormous rolling suitcase in his wake.

Chekov and Sulu had already departed and were halfway across the vast green field in front of the Academy's main building, looking very much like a pair of playful cadets, shoving and tickling at one another, making noises of glee.

"Where are you two headed?" Jim was asking Spock, a grin on his face.

"Africa," Uhura answered for him, smiling and giving Spock's arm a squeeze. "To visit my family…"

"And then New Vulcan," Spock added, a slightly longing look in his normally emotionless eyes.

"And _then_ Paris," Uhura finished.

"And you?" Spock queried.

"Camping," he replied. "Around here, actually. Bones is coming with me."

Bones turned at the sound of his own name, blinking groggily. "Who we talkin' about?" he asked in his familiar Southern drawl.

The corners of Spock's mouth twitched almost imperceptibly and Uhura laughed warmly.

"Have fun, Leonard," she said, giving Bones a friendly hug before starting off.

Spock smiled, then parted with his customary salute and sentiment, "Live long and prosper."

"Be safe," Jim called after them.

"_Like you will!"_ Uhura retorted in the distance.

Bones simply waved, stifling a yawn.

"Jeez, you really are tired, aren't you?" Jim asked.

The doctor nodded, blinking slightly. "Yeah," he said.

"Come on. We have to stop off at my place to pack everything anyways." Jim started off toward the campus parking lot and Bones followed.

Shortly after being given the position of Captain of the Enterprise, Jim had bought a small apartment up near Sutro Tower, to have a place to stay when he was staying on Earth, having no desire to reside in one of the guest rooms at the Academy, even though it was free, as he was a captain.

The drive through San Francisco traffic took a bit longer than planned, but neither Bones nor Jim minded, as Jim was practically bubbling with excitement at the idea of a month long vacation, and Bones simply stared blankly out the window, glassy-eyed.

When they finally drove up to the apartment building, stepped out of the car, (a rusty but still-working silver truck), Bones made to pick up his duffel bag but Jim got there first, saying, "Go sleep, I got this. Guest room's the first door on the right upstairs."

Too exhausted to argue, Bones did as he was told, noting as he walked inside that Jim's apartment was oddly well-furnished, considering that he'd spent little time there since getting it in the first place.

As he tramped up the stairs, Bones stared around at the pictures that lined the walls, flat holographic displays depicting hundreds of scenes from daily life on the Enterprise: Here, a picture of Sulu at the helm, there, one of Scotty fixing a leak in Engineering. There was one of ones stabbing Spock in the neck with a hypospray, a look of extreme satisfaction on the doctor's face, anotherof Jim and Uhura playing three-dimensional chess, their faces grim with concentration, and another of Sulu and Chekov fencing in one of the training rooms.

There was one of Bones at his piano.

Faint surprise registered in the doctor's brain at this sight. When had Jim gotten that picture?

He stumbled then, having reached the top of the stairs and put his foot down through empty air.

Shaking his head as if to clear it, he entered the first room on the right, where a large bed lay waiting.

Gratefully, without bothering to undress, he took off his shoes, slipped under the covers, and fell asleep almost instantly.

Bones awoke after a long period of silent dreamlessness, although it felt only a few seconds to him, to the voice of some twentieth century actress whose name he couldn't recall, in the process of singing a line of a familiar song:

"_But there are things that cannot be! And there are storms we cannot weather!"_ emanated from downstairs, faintly.

It was something from one of Jim's beloved musicals, he recalled, groggily, shifting in the warmth of the covers and sheets pulled up to his neck.

He rolled over to see the window where, to his surprise, street lights flickered below in the now dark city, fog twisting its way through the streets from the ocean.

_How long have I been asleep?_ he thought, blankly.

Slowly, he rolled out of bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, glancing around the darkened room, then stood, approaching the door as the song grew louder.

"_So different now from what it seemed!" _thundered the singer, "_Now life has killed the dream…I dreamed."_

Bones walked quietly downstairs, yawning as he did, just as the song ended and the brief moment of silence between songs settled in. He prepared himself for another powerful ballad about loss and broken dreams, etc, etc.

What he was not expecting was to be bombarded with: "_Mister Billy Flynn and the Press Conference Rag! Notice how his mouth never moves…almost,"_ and then to be launched into a roaring 20s call-and-response number.

Entering the living room, Bones caught sight of Jim stacking a large, black bin atop a precarious pile of pillows and sleeping bags, looking slightly confused about something.

"Just so you know, that's a recipe for disaster," the doctor announced, smiling.

Jim jumped and nearly lost his grip on the box.

"Bones," he said, heaving a sigh of relief, "I thought you were still asleep."

"What time is it?" Bones asked, concerned.

"Around…ah…sevenish," Jim replied.

"You're telling me I've been asleep for seven hours while you've been packing all by yourself?"

"Well…you were really tired, and—"

"Aww, Jim," the doctor groaned, exasperated, "You should've woken me. I coulda helped."

"You looked like you were going to collapse, okay? It was in your best interests." Jim flashed him his best smirk and set the bin down on the floor. "Hungry?"

Bones shrugged, throwing his hands up in the air. "Okay," he surrendered, faintly annoyed.

"I went out and got Indian. You like Indian, right?"

"Sure."

"Good."

_You went out and got _Indian? Bones thought, staring after his friend as he strode around the fireplace wall that separated the kitchen and the living room, _Good God, Jim, you have more energy than anyone I've ever met._

"So…explain to me how one goes from a tragic broken-promises ballad to 'Mister Billy Flynn and the Press-Conference Rag'?" the doctor queried, raising his eyebrows.

"What?" Jim asked, mock-defensively. "It's my musical playlist. It's on shuffle."

"So what's next?"

"Mmmm…probably more Les Mis. Or Phantom, that's likely too."

Jim picked up a plastic bag of boxed takeout, with red lettering cheerily declaring "Thank you, come again!" and set it down on the glass table, extracting from it two large Styrofoam takeout boxes and one smaller box.

"Want something to drink?" he asked.

"Umm…sure."

"Beer?"

"Got any coffee?"

"Are you trying to give yourself another caffeine buzz? It's obvious that's what made you crash today."

"That and my hangover. I mean decaf."

"Let me see…" Jim walked into the kitchen and started searching cabinets, "…yes." He extracted a small box of coffee and fed some of its contents into what looked to be an antique coffee maker, made of black plastic and emitting a loud sputtering noise when the coffee filtered through.

Bones watched this process from a distance, curiously tilting his head to one side like a child.

_Odd,_ he thought.

Jim returned to the table while the coffee maker spluttered on, just as the roaring 20s song ended and another began. It was a male voice again, this time deep and haunting.

"_Paaaaast the point of no return…no backward glances…"_ it began.

"Yep," Jim said, taking a seat, "it's Phantom."

Bones, still captivated by the coffee maker, blinked. "Huh?"

"The song," Jim told him.

"Oh, right. You don't have a replicator?" The doctor jerked a thumb toward the noisy antique.

Jim grinned. "I do, but the stuff that spits out that it calls coffee…I swear it's some kind of alien entrails or something. You know, all grayish and foamy and—"

"Okay, I get the picture!" Bones protested, holding up a hand in defense.

Jim laughed.

"So, are we going to visit your mom first, or…" Bones trailed off as Jim's grin began to fade.

"Ah…no," he said, grimacing. "She's off planet with her husband, and with my budget, well, I can't really…I'll leave her a message." He shrugged, standing to get two mismatched plates from a nearby cabinet as Bones cursed himself inwardly for bringing up the uncomfortable topic.

But a moment later, Jim was smiling again, setting a round plate with green and yellow stripes across it down in front of Bones, and opening one of the Styrofoam boxes to reveal several large pieces of flat bread.

"Naan," Jim declared, gesturing overdramatically at the box, then opened the next one, "Lamb curry," and the last, "Mixed veggies, really spicy."

Bones snorted, helping himself to a piece of naan.

"So, I was looking at the pictures you had on the wall," he began, remembering something rather odd about that collection, "and I saw one of me playing the piano. When was that? I thought nobody knew I played piano…but you do now, I guess."

Jim blinked for a moment, confused. Then a look of recognition came over him. _"Oh,"_ he said, "That picture."

Bones nodded. Was it possible he had somehow taken it when he'd visited the doctor the night before?

"You remember that night at the academy when I took Gaila out to that bar, and you tagged along, and you got completely hammered?"

For some strange reason, Bones felt his heart sink. He _had_ been drunk that evening. He had been, for some reason or another, unnaturally depressed, and had proceeded to drink himself under the table so that he hardly remembered any of the event, except for the killer headache he had the next morning.

"I remember my hangover," he said, darkly.

"Well," Jim continued, "you went over to the piano and played Fur Elise and Eine Kline Nachtmusik."

Bones blinked, sure Jim was joking, but the other man's face was dead serious.

"You're serious?" he asked, incredulously.

Jim nodded. "Yep," he said. "Then you passed out and I had to drag you back home. Gaila wasn't too happy about that. I mean, I _told_ her you were out cold, wouldn't hear a thing, but she didn't feel like—"

"Y'know, I can infer what you mean most of the time, Jim; you don't have to go into graphic detail."

Jim laughed, rolling his eyes and dishing up a spoonful of lamb curry. "Anyways, I rescued the picture from another cadet who wanted to put it in the campus paper."

"And now it's hanging on your wall."

The captain shrugged. "It was a special moment," was all he said.

After dinner, both men stayed up for another few hours, packing, watching a few movies, and challenging one another to a particularly vicious game of three-dimensional chess, which Jim ultimately won.

At around midnight, both of them turned in to get some sleep before rushing off the following morning at the crack of dawn to beat the worst of the San Francisco commute traffic.

Jim was snoring loudly in seconds, or so it seemed to Bones, who lay awake for a long time, thinking about the picture.

Why had he been hoping that Jim had sneakily managed to snap the photo and put the damn thing on his wall the night before? What did it matter?

And if it really had been that night he was miserable and shitfaced drunk, why hadn't Jim gotten rid of it? Who wants to remember their worst moments—or their friends' worst moments?

It was then that Bones reminded himself that it had been at one of his worst moments that he met Jim, drunk then as well and angry at everyone—his wife, the court ruling that took his little girl from him, the stupid lieutenant commander who'd told him to have a seat before she'd have to hurt him.

In the darkness, Bones grinned at what he'd said to Jim: _"I may throw up on you."_

No doubt the kid had been thoroughly weirded out by his paranoia, but all the same, they'd ended up the best of friends.

Still confused, the doctor yawned and rolled over, closing his eyes. In minutes, he was asleep.

"Bones. _Bones_. Wake up."

_No…_ the doctor thought, _Five more minutes…Sleep…I wanna sleep…I haven't had a decent amount of sleep in about a month, Jocelyn…_

"Bones."

Wait. Jocelyn had never called him "Bones". She'd always called him Len. Or Leo. Or any number of ridiculous pet names that embarrassed him to no end. He hadn't even gotten the nickname "Bones" until he'd joined Starfleet…

"BONES."

The voice was close now, and he snapped fuzzily out of his half dream, blinking open his eyes to find Jim's face about three inches from his own.

Jim smiled, drawing back. "Time to get up."

"Good God, man, what time is it?" Bones grumbled as he sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

"Five thirty."

"You got me up at five thirty to go camping?"

"Commute traffic's a bitch. We both know that," Jim replied with a shrug.

Bones blinked at him. "You're dressed already," he said, blankly.

Jim looked himself over in mock-concern. He was wearing the usual getup he wore outside of his Starfleet uniform: a plain, white tee-shirt with jeans and the leather jacket he'd had since God-knows-when.

"I certainly hope so," he answered, " 'cause if I'm not it means there's something wrong with my eyesight. Or my brain. I dunno. You ever had a hallucination before?"

Bones didn't reply, but threw back the sheets, getting out of bed and walking over to Jim, feeling the other man's hair. It was damp.

"And you took a shower! Good _God_, man, just how long have you been up?"

"If you're done fondling my head, you should probably go take a shower yourself and get ready to go," Jim replied with a smirk. "And be quick, 'cause we still need to load the truck."

He exited the room and descended the stairs, humming to himself.

Bones stared after him in mild shock, thinking that Jim had far too much energy for his own good.

About twenty minutes later Bones emerged downstairs in jeans and a green shirt, yawning and carrying his duffel out to Jim's truck where Jim stood in front of a pile of supplies, trying to lift a rather heavy-looking box while carrying a tent over one shoulder and two sleeping bags over the other.

He picked it up, took a single step and started to stumble backward, cursing wildly.

In a flash, Bones had darted over to him and snatched the box from him, finding that it wasn't so much heavy as just cumbersome.

Jim found his footing and grinned. "Thanks," he said, dumping the tent into the truck bed, pushing it against the back wall against a small bag of what looked to be air mattresses.

Bones hefted the box and placed it in the truck bed, shaking his head. "You always bit off more than you could chew, Jim," he said with a wry smile.

Jim shrugged, picking up a long cooler and setting it down in the bed, clambering inside to jam it between the cumbersome box and the air mattresses at the back.

Bones bent to pick up the two camp chairs and handed them to Jim, who took them, adding, "By the way, what music do you like to listen to?"

The doctor exhaled, thinking. "I dunno," he said, "Pretty much anything with piano in it…anything that's not screaming-death-metal or dirty rap…other than that, I'm easy."

"Darn!" Jim said in mock disappointment, snapping his fingers.

Bones snorted and handed him a camp stove and a box of propane.

They set off at around six forty-five, picked up bagels for breakfast on the way out of Marin, complete with (ESPRESSO) coffee that kept both of them up for the next couple of hours as they wound their way up the coast, listening to Jim's musicals on shuffle.

(The seventh time they reached the song "Roxie", Bones begged Jim to turn it off, or at least switch to another playlist, and Jim complied with a laugh.)

Despite the caffeine buzz, Bones, for whatever reason, was inexplicably exhausted most of the day, all the way up the windy coast, drifting in and out of sleep as he attempted to carry on a conversation with Jim, mostly failing.

At around two in the afternoon, Jim stopped the music and cast a glance at his friend, a bemused expression on his face.

"You're tired," he said. It wasn't a question.

Bones blinked. "What? I'm not t-tired," he protested, a yawn interrupting his answer.

"Look, Bones, if you wanna sleep, all you have to do is tell me," Jim told him, smiling.

Bones shook his head. "I don't get it," he said, "It's not like I'm hung over or anything. Hell, I had coffee this morning."

"Maybe it's got something to do with the fact that you didn't fall asleep 'till after midnight and got up around five thirty?" Jim suggested, raising his eyebrows in amusement.

"I do that on a regular basis, though," Bones answered. "I don't _get_ it."

"Then get some sleep. Bones, you're dog tired. We're hotelling it tonight, so at least we don't have to set up a tent.

"Jim, ya don't have to—"

"It's all been arranged," Jim overrode him, casually waving him off. "Just get him some sleep, okay?"

Bones deflated slightly, smiling gratefully at him, whose ice blue eyes were in turn smiling back.

He was lucky, he decided, to have Jim as a friend.

"Okay," he decided, turning over on his side and shutting his eyes.

At around ten at night, they were still driving.

Jim was staring blankly at a long, dark stretch of interstate five, not unlike the lonely highway in Nevada. (Slightly dazed, he hoped he wasn't really in Nevada. He didn't much like Nevada.)

Bones was snoring softly from the passenger seat as music played at the lowest possible volume. (Jim had switched back to his musical playlist and was currently listening to "Stars".

Jim cast a sympathetic glance at his friend, who stirred as if he could feel it, then stopped, going back to his normal pattern of sleep.

_If he keeps this up, he'll turn into a night owl, _he thought, trying not to laugh and wake Bones up.

Although it was a bit unusual: Bones hadn't ever been this tired in the time that Jim knew him, except maybe when he had exams to go though at the Academy. What if…

_You're just being paranoid_, a voice in his mind said, dismissively,_ Bones is fine. And you…well…you care about him too much._

_Too much? _he retaliated, _I think I care about him just enough._

_Is that why you invited him on shore leave with you?_

_Obviously._

Jim caught sight of a pair of headlights in the rearview mirror. An eighteen-wheeler, by the looks of it, approaching fast.

_I'll just let him pass, _he thought.

_You're avoiding the question, _the voice said, _and don't change the flashlight._

_I'm not. I'm only looking out for Bones' and my safety on the road._

_See? You care about him too much._

_Not wanting your friend to get killed is caring about him too much?_

_No, but that doesn't change the acts. You invited him to come with you for a reason, and it isn't because you felt sorry for him._

Jim glanced at the speedometer and then at the truck behind him. He was doing about seventy, meaning the truck had to be going a lot faster…

_Hey! _the voice said, loudly, _Pay attention! I'm bringing facts to the light._

_What facts? I brought Bones with me 'cause he's my friend and I didn't want him to be lonely for his entire month off!_

_He's your friend._

_Yes._

_But you want him to be more than your friend._

…_I…_

Jim's mouth went dry. The eighteen-wheeler was right on top of him and it wasn't about to stop.

He jerked the wheel to the right, driving off onto the shoulder and slamming hard on the brakes until the car skidded to a halt on the gravel.

Moments later, the eighteen-wheeler flew past in a blur, nine of its wheels on the shoulder, the other nine still on the road.

Jim watched in breathless horror as the massive truck drifted back onto the road and over the median line, screaming away into the distance until it was only a pair of red lights, which it became in a matter of seconds. It was then that Jim, realized his hands were shaking and he had a death grip on the steering wheel.

Bones stirred slowly and awoke just as "Stars" ended and "Kidnap the Sandy Claws" began. He blinked, glancing over at Jim, who was breathing very slowly and deeply and grasping the steering wheel as if it were a lifeline in a particularly violent storm.

"Um…Jim?" he began, "…Maybe I should drive for a little while, okay?"

Bones nearly got them lost on the way to the hotel by deciding to take a shortcut on a small, one-lane road that he thought went all the way through, but didn't.

When he turned around to double back, he took the wrong fork in a junction, and ended up driving a good ten miles out of the way before Jim suggested they turn back.

Both of them would've taken any opportunity to ask for directions at this point, but the fact that no one was around prevented them from doing so.

At around midnight they reached their destination, gratefully pulling into the parking lot of the Ashland Best Western.

Jim heaved a sigh of relief. "Okay," he began, "Next time, I don't care who's driving. I navigate."

Bones agreed wholeheartedly.

The following morning they were on the road again, driving through the winding, secluded mountains that led to the High Desert.

Bones had downed a good quart of coffee at breakfast and spent the first hour in the car shaking and hyper and constantly asking Jim to stop so he could relieve himself.

The second hour he'd stopped needing to go to the bathroom.

The third he'd stopped shaking.

The fourth he was barely keeping his eyes open.

He couldn't understand it. Caffeine was supposed to keep people awake for allotted amounts of time, and six hours was his usual time frame for this amount of coffee. It was hour four, and he was trying not to fall asleep.

He caught himself dozing off for the third time and jerked awake, blinking at the blurred trees.

"You okay?" Jim asked, looking concernedly at Bones.

Bones turned to him, grimacing. "I can't keep my eyes open," he answered, "It's bizarre—I drank about a liter of coffee, so I should still be jumpy and hyper and…" He trailed off, his throat tightening as he felt his stomach churn painfully.

"Bones?"

The windy road was growing blurry and lengthened, twisting sharply to the right, then left, then right far too fast for Bones' mind to compute.

He shut his eyes and immediately felt sick.

_This must be what an LSD trip feels like, _he thought, faintly, _Except minus the ecstasy._

"Bones?" Jim's voice felt far away, echoing back to him across the great divide between the driver and passenger seats.

"Bones, are you all right?"

The voice was close now and that only further disoriented him. The car swerved left, then right in rapid succession, and he could feel bile rising in his throat.

Just then, Bones felt a hand on his arm and he opened his eyes.

Jim had stopped the car and was staring at him intently. "Are you okay?" he asked.

Bones shook his head once, then unbuckled his seatbelt, opened the door, stumbled outside, and emptied the contents of his stomach onto the ground.

He felt dizzy and nauseous, and he soon found himself leaning against the wood face separating the thick trees from the road.

Faintly, he heard a car door slam and running footsteps as Jim made his way over to him.

"Bones, what—" he began.

Bones cut him off, blinking and beginning to straighten up. The world felt less dizzy now.

"I'm okay," he mumbled, turning to face the younger man. "M'just a little carsick."

Jim looked immensely mollified at these words and he breathed a sigh of relief. "You scared me for a sec there," he said, smiling weakly. He glanced back to the car, then back at Bones, then did a double-take as he noticed the puddle of vomit on the ground a few feet away. "Holy shit."

"What?" Bones asked.

"Bones, your puke…is blue," Jim said.

Bones glanced over at it. Sure enough, it was a bright, chemical blue color, standing out against the dusty ground. He blinked as his vision started to swim again. Everything felt disorienting and dizzyingly wrong.

"Bones, are you all right?" Jim asked urgently, taking a step forward and grasping his friend by the shoulders.

Bones opened his mouth to speak and found he couldn't. He thought hard, trying to come up with something to explain blue vomit. Nothing came to mind.

"That's…weird," he commented, dazedly, and fainted.

Jim almost panicked as Bones started to fall backwards, trying to hold him upright, or at least let him down gently.

He failed in both attempts.

Most Starfleet personnel who worked in the field were in the best possible physical condition, and Jim and Bones were no exceptions, but his friend's sudden collapse had caught Jim off-guard and Bones was already a good thirty pounds heavier than him because of his height.

That, and he was deadweight.

Jim slipped on the dusty ground, pitching forward with a yelp of surprise so that he landed on Bones' chest.

The doctor didn't seem to notice and remained unconscious, his head gently lolling to one side as it hit the ground with a dull thud.

_Shit, _Jim thought_, _hoping he hadn't injured Bones further. _Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. Now what?_

The snide voice from earlier returned. _I would start by getting off him and taking his pulse, _it said, wryly.

Jim felt his face grow hot as he flushed, climbing off Bones and pressing two fingers to a point beneath his friend's jaw.

_My own subconscious is taunting me, _he thought, slightly disturbed by this fact as he felt a faint pulse there.

He bent low over Bones' mouth, watching the man's chest as he hoped desperately he was breathing.

He was, thankfully.

Jim straightened up, staring at his friend, who looked as if he could've been sleeping had he not been lying flat on his back in the middle of nowhere.

He remembered from a distant first aid class that he wasn't supposed to move an unconscious person unless they were in more danger where they were than somewhere else.

Technically, Bones wasn't in danger here, but Jim had no clue what happening to Bones or how long it would take for an ambulance to arrive. That and his friend's puke was blue. Chemical-cleaner blue. Unnatural blue.

"Jim?"

Jim jumped and looked down at Bones, who was stirring slightly.

"Bones," he said, immediately. "Are you—" He stopped. Bones obviously was not all right. "…What's going on?" he finished, lamely, hating himself for sounding scared and helpless.

Bones blinked. "I don't know," he said, after a moment. He stared up at the trees overhead, his mouth slightly agape. "I'm _dead_, Jim."

"Okay. Ohh-kay," Jim said, unnerved. "I'm taking you to a hospital."

He hadn't the faintest idea where the nearest hospital was, but all the same. Jim helped Bones to his feet, who was looking dizzily around at everything as if he were a child.

As they got back in the car and rushed off, Jim heard the snide voice in his mind again: _You're worried about him, aren't you? See? I told you so…_

Bones didn't remember blacking out. He remembered throwing up; he remembered talking dazedly to Jim who had looked very worried, his ice-blue eyes wide and scared…

Then nada.

Still, he awoke in a hospital bed somewhere unknown, his head light and lost in a haze of antibiotics, the room swirling and tipping so that he was glad to be lying down.

But he had no clue where he was.

He blinked at his surroundings, a white curtain around the bed, bright lights streaming in from outside, the heart monitor behind him, and….Jim.

Jim was asleep, sitting in what couldn't be a very comfortable chair, one elbow resting on a small table next to the bed, his hand propping up his head. His other hand was resting on the edge of the bed, an inch from Bones' hand.

Bones blinked.

"…Jim?" he asked.

Jim stirred slightly, his hand twitching reflexively toward the tips of Bones' fingers…

…and then he sat up, unconsciously drawing his hand back to his side.

"Hey," he said, smiling slightly. "How do you feel?"

Bones blinked again. Jim looked oddly distorted. "Like I'm taking a magic mushroom trip," he announced.

Jim snorted. "And you would know what that feels like…how?"

"I can imagine."

"Well, you're supposed to feel that way. It sucks, but it's the truth—the antibiotics they gave you are well…" Jim shrugged, apologetically, "…not very nice."

"Antibiotics for what?" Bones asked.

"Antibiotics for blue-vomit-inducing sicknesses. I can't remember the name of it, seriously. Started with an m. Mono-something."

Bones stared up at the ceiling, resolving to check later. At the moment, though…

"Why were you holding hands with me?" he asked, meeting Jim's ice blue eyes.

Jim went faintly pink. "You really don't remember, do you?" he asked, blinking, "You were really delirious. They were running a test, one that involved sticking an enormous needle into your spine. Said you had to be awake, but it'd hurt like hell, so I let you basically crush my hand in order to try and block the pain."

Bones stared at him, horrified.

"Relax," Jim said, dismissively, "You didn't even come close to breaking anything, and if you had, they'd've fixed it."

"You _let_ me do that?!" Bones demanded.

Jim shrugged. "I care too much about you," he said, smiling faintly.

Bones sighed. Typical Jim—making light of something that clearly wasn't anything innocent. "I'm sorry for screwing up your plans for shore leave," he said, apologetically.

"What?!" Jim demanded, incredulously, "No, don't apologize! Bones, it wasn't your fault."

"Yeah, but if I hadn't come—"

Jim leaned forward so that he was about an inch from Bones' face. "I wanted you to come," he said, seriously, "And I don't regret it."

Bones managed a small smile as Jim leaned back. "Y'know, I fully expected you to be the one in a hospital bed, not me," he said, with a wry smile.

But Jim wasn't exactly listening. He was staring off at the curtain walling off the rest of the room.

"Bones…" he began, "…when you were delirious…you said some things about you that I didn't exactly know. Before. And I…I dunno. Well…I'm rambling, aren't I?"

Bones hadn't the slightest clue what Jim was talking about and he nodded in agreement.

"It's just that I…you won't know what I mean, but…I…"

"Jim, whatever you're trying to say, just spit it out," Bones said, baffled. "You don't have to—"

But before he could finish the sentence, Jim had leaned forward and kissed him, their lips meeting gently.

Bones felt dazed again, as if this had doubled the effects of the antibiotics.

Slowly, they broke apart, staring at each other for a few seconds.

"I said _that_?" Bones asked, after a moment.

Jim shrugged. "In more words, but essentially yes. I've been waiting to say that forever."

Bones blinked at him. "How long?"

"Since I saw you at the piano, drunk at that bar when we were at the Academy. You?"

"Since you talked to me the night shore leave started."

Jim smiled. "…This may be the best shore leave I've ever had," he said.

Bones decided he had to agree.


End file.
